Let them call it mischief:
When it is past and prospered 'twill be virtue.
- Catiline (act III, sc. 3) [Mischief]

The gods
Grow angry with your patience. 'Tis their care,
And must be yours, that guilty men escape not:
As crimes do grow, justice should rouse itself.
- Catiline (act III, sc. 5) [Guilt]

Great honours are great burdens, but on whom
They are cast with envy, he doth bear two loads.
His cares must still be double to his joys,
In any dignity.
- Catiline--His Conspiracy
(act III, sc. 1, l. 1) [Honor]

True happiness
Consists not in the multitude of friends,
But in the worth and choice. Nor would I have
Virtue a popular regard pursue:
Let them be good that love me, though but few.
- Cynthia's Revels (act III, sc. 2)
[Friends]

Princes that would their people should do well
Must at themselves begin, as at the head;
For men, by their example, pattern out
Their limitations, and regard of laws:
A virtuous court a world to virtue draws.
- Cynthia's Revels (act V, sc. 3) [Royalty]

I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to
Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never
plotted out a line. My answer hath been, would he had blotted a
thousand.
- Discoveries--De Shakespeare nostrat
[Shakespeare]

A prince without letters is a Pilot without eyes. All his
government is groping.
- Discoveries--Illiteratus Princeps
[Royalty]

They say Princes learn no art truly, but the art of horsemanship.
The reason is, the brave beast is no flatterer. He will throw a
Prince as soon as his groom.
- Discoveries--Illiteratus Princeps
[Royalty]

Yet the best pilots have need of mariners, besides sails, anchor
and other tackle.
- Discoveries--Illiteratus Princeps
[Navigation]

Laugh, and be fat, sir, your penance is known.
They that love mirth, let them heartily drink,
'Tis the only receipt to make sorrow sink.
- Entertainments--The Penates [Laughter]

Still to be neat, still to be drest,
As you were going to a feast,
Still to be powder'd, all perfum'd.
Lady, it is to be presumed,
Though art's hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.
- Epicaene; or, The Silent Woman
(act I, sc. 1, song) [Apparel]

Pray thee, take care, that tak'st my book in hand,
To read it well; that is to understand.
- Epigram (1) [Books]

When I would know thee . . . my thought looks
Upon thy well-made choice of friends and books;
Then do I love thee, and behold thy ends
In making thy friends books, and thy books friends.
- Epigram (86) [Books]

Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die;
Which in life did harbor give
To more virtue that doth live.
If at all she had a fault,
Leave it buried in this vault.
- Epigram (CXXIV, to Lady Elizabeth L.H.)
[Epitaphs]

But that which most doth take my muse and me,
Is a pure cup of rich Canary wine,
Which is the mermaid's now, but shall be mine.
- Epigram CI [Wine and Spirits]

No simple word
That shall be uttered at our mirthful board,
Shall make us sad next morning; or affright
The liberty that we'll enjoy to-night.
- Epigram CI [Regret]

Nor shall our cups make any guilty men;
But at our parting, we will be, as when
We innocently met.
- Epigram CI [Drinking]

Yet shall you have to rectify your palate,
An olive, capers, or some better salad
Ushering the mutton; with a short-legged hen,
If we can get her, full of eggs, and then,
Limons, and wine for sauce: to these a coney
Is not to be despaired of for our money;
And though fowl now be scarce, yet there are clerks,
The sky not falling, think we may have larks.
- Epigram CI [Eating]

He that departs with his own honesty
For vulgar praise, doth it too dearly buy.
- Epigram II [Honesty]

Whilst that for which all virtue now is sold,
And almost every vice, almighty gold.
- Epistle to Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland
[Money]

Thou art but gone before,
Whither the world must follow.
- Epitaph on Sir John Roe (p. 190),
in Dodd's "Epigrammatists" [Death]